Today's joys and sorrows

A sorrow this morning: outside the glass doors near our library, a dead downy woodpecker, evidently one that had flown into the sheets of glass. The dead bird was only a few feet from the fenced area where the children from the Early Learning Center were playing, and I hoped as I dashed to class that Maintenance would removed the bird before we had a group of traumatized toddlers on the playground.

Joys this afternoon: the squirrels were out in abundance in the neighborhoods in which I walked on a sunny afternoon. Birds were calling, though I don't have a good ear for winter birdsong and couldn't tell what kinds there were. Then, arriving home, I heard a chickadee and got to watch it as it took one seed at a time from the sunflower feeder and hammered it on the feeder pole. Anyone who isn't cheered up by a chickadee must be REALLY depressed.